Friday, 30 September 2011

40 Days of Treats

They are saying Hail Marys, displaying models of foetuses and handing out leaflets. This time there is a counter-campaign. Instead of setting up a rival protest or taking on the demonstrators, which could make things even more difficult for women who go to bpas, Carmen d'Cruz and Liz Lutgendorf decided to ignore them completely and focus on the bpas staff. They've organised 40 Days Of Treats for the staff who have to deal with the protesters being outside every day. The plan is for every day the protesters are there, they will take the staff a little treat to show support for them and for the right to choose.

I went in to the bpas offices in Bedford Square, London WC1 today and took them strawberries. I figured that if everyone else is taking them cakes and snacks it might be a good idea to take a healthy treat - we don't want to kill them with kindness.

The leaflet being handed out by the protesters says 'You can stop injustice' on the cover, along with words like homelessness, racism, sexual trafficking and poverty. What's inside has nothing to do with any of this. It's the usual collection of highly emotive language and images plus misinformation of the kind Nadine Dorries is no stranger to.

It talks about the 'preborn' - in the same way that eggs, flour, fat and sugar are precake, perhaps. There is also the usual list of Terrible Things that will happen if you have an abortion, both physical and psychological, along with gory descriptions of abortions. Along the way there is also a quick shot at stem cell research.

The leaflet has an article associating abortion with eugenics and denies that the world is over-populated. This focuses on falling birth-rates in Europe and says that 'far from rapaciously expending resources, developed societies have consistently figured out ways to make fewer resources stretch further'. The fact that this is partly by exploiting the third world where overpopulation, famine and disease are still rife isn't mentioned. The warning about falling European birth rates reads like an alarmist call to repopulate Europe by banning abortion.

They are also against abortion after rape and incest which, they say, makes everything worse for everyone concerned. There's a promo for pre-marital abstinence and lifelong monogamy too.

The logic of many of their arguments defies analysis. They quote 'scientific evidence' that has been repeatedly debunked and give only the skimpiest of sources.

As just one example, the source for 'women who abort are 144% more likely to physically abuse their children' is given only as Acta Pediatrica 2005. This is a monthly journal so that's hardly being transparent. They claim that there are full citations on their London website but if they are there then they're so well hidden even their search facility can't find them.

You can read the research paper here. It's a study of mostly black, low-income women in Baltimore. Its conclusions are 'However, counter to expectations, maternal history of induced abortion was not linked with enhanced risk for neglect after the effects of a number of variables associated with neglect were controlled' and 'the data were gathered in only one geographical locale and the study adopted a retrospective methodology that relied primarily on self-report assessments, which could compromise the integrity of the data gathered as well as the generalizability of the findings. A final limitation pertains to how the abuse and neglect cases were selected'.

This is pretty typical of the way anti-abortion groups misuse research and statistics, as I've written about several times before.

Anyway, on to happier and more cake-based matters.

If you want to join Carmen (left) and Liz (right), the campaign runs until November 6. You can follow 40 Days of Treats on Twitter @40daysoftreats and read the blog for updates. The plan is to spread the campaign to bpas offices in other parts of the UK so you don't have to be in London to join in.

17 comments:

Your 'preborn' / 'precake' analogy doesn't quite work. It would be better if we were talking of sperm and unfertilised eggs, but a foetus is the finished product - it is fully human and alive! Flour is no more a 'precake' than it is a pre-pancake or pre-bread.

The only separating factors between a foetus and an adult human are time, nourishment and care. This is no different to a 'postborn' baby and, on that basis alone, I see no reason to afford different protection to one or the other, otherwise the door appears open to all sorts of discrimation, whether it be by age, sex, location or physical / mental ability.

I like the cake analogy - and I won't be unecessarily tiresome about how flour isn't DNA or sugar isn't hormones. It's metaphor - geddit?

There's a lot of ad homs in these comments. But mentioning eugenics and birth control providers in the same sentence just doesn't make the case.

The "time, nourishment and care" that separate a foetus from an adult human are given by the mind & body of a fully formed, adult woman. I feel deeply that it's immoral to extract these things against her will when we have safe ways of providing choice.

Why stick to ad homs and tenuous associations, when one could attack the real meat of this one - Tessera's follow-up of the real substance of that cited paper. Perhaps because she's done the definitive job, and found the protestors' propaganda very wanting indeed.

It's not choice for some women who would like to have their baby but think it's not possible for them, and so they have an abortion because they weren't told how it could be possible for them. Other people chose. Does anyone care about them and their choice?

I'm not sure it's right to say that the 'time, nourishment and care' required for a baby in the womb to develop into an adult human are the gift of a single woman. Rather, these are the protections we all should be able to rely on society to provide. They are basic human rights and, specifically, the right to life.

And, in the same way that we all - no matter what age, location, sex, race, mental / physical ability - have the right to life, none of us have the right to remove those of another.

Of course, we must consider the will of the mother but in the context of all society - the same basis on which we judge all other decisions.

Excellent! Another watertight argument. It's getting so I hardly need to work out my opinion; I just refer to this blog and follow the flawless logic, always backed up by tireless reaearch and good links. That's not to say I don't read and think about the comments left by others, which can also be informative and thought provoking - they are the acid that reveals the gold. :D

Excellent! Another watertight argument. It's getting so I hardly need to work out my opinion; I just refer to this blog and follow the flawless logic, always backed up by tireless reaearch and good links. That's not to say I don't read and think about the comments left by others, which can also be informative and thought provoking - they are the acid that reveals the gold. :D

Excellent! Another watertight argument. It's getting so I hardly need to work out my opinion; I just refer to this blog and follow the flawless logic, always backed up by tireless reaearch and good links. That's not to say I don't read and think about the comments left by others, which can also be informative and thought provoking - they are the acid that reveals the gold. :D

Has anyone read Peter Tatchell's book The Betrayal of Youth? He doesn't care what anyone thinks, speaks his mind and there are no boundaries. People set up your own set of morals depending on your life, experience, gender, etc. depending on what makes you personally happy at that time, don't let anyone tell you this is right or wrong, who says! That is the way forward thanks to choice you can control the future.

The thing I don't like about abortion is knowing that there is always someone missing from your life. You know they were meant to be there for the journey. I felt pressurised by everyone telling me that I was too young and it would ruin my education. I've done my A levels and my degree and I regret my decision bitterly. I'm regarded as a high achiever but I'm desperately unhappy and wish I could turn the clock back. Has anyone else experienced that feeling of emptiness and never feeling satisfied?

40 Days for Life is a beautiful thing, natural and wonderful for all involved, especially the unborn human. There is no better feeling than meeting a woman at an abortion clinic and offering her support and real choices at that vulnerable time when everything seemed impossible and everyone else was telling her abortion was the best decision. These women who go on to have their children are amazing witnesses to life. No one said it was going to be easy but they all say it is the best decision they ever made without exception. Will you have the courage to post my comment or is this blog just for pro-choicers?

About Me

Hello, gentle reader.
I write mostly about skeptical and (roughly) scientific matters, often health, gender and sex related.
I run London Skeptics in the Pub and I have a PhD in something you will never need to know about.
twitter @tessakendall